A 'perfect storm' of failure led to a young homeless man's death in a fire near McMaster: MPP

Last September, Hamilton firefighters rescued a man in his 20s inside a burning, boarded-up building owned by McMaster University.

Shortly after arriving at the hospital, he died.

The home was part of a set of buildings between Dalewood and Forsyth avenues slated to become the site of a new school residence building.

Glenn De Caire, McMaster's director of security and a former police chief, previously said people managed to get into the buildings despite them being boarded up, fenced off and having security regularly patrol the area.

But security reports obtained by CBC Hamilton through a freedom-of-information request show there was another fire at one of those houses just four days before and yet another 18 days before — and the man who died in the fire was the person behind all of them.

The reports have lawmakers and homelessness advocates calling for more supports and funding for mental health services and housing to prevent more people from falling through the cracks and repeating potentially fatal actions. 

"This is a poster-child story of people who die on our streets," said Sandy Shaw, member of provincial parliament for Hamilton West — Ancaster — Dundas with the Ontario New Democratic Party. "Where are people supposed to go? Where are people supposed to sleep?"

"It's so sad. 20, he's a kid … that's somebody's kid, somebody lost a child."

What do we know about the man who died?

Details about the young man are sparse.

Security reports before and after the fire include his name and aliases he used, but are redacted.

The unredacted portions of the reports describe the man as unhoused and "a marginalized member of the community."

They also say he had a "long history" of thefts, starting fires and mental health issues.

After he died, the documents say his identity was confirmed not by family or friends, but by police officers who knew him.

Hamilton Fire Department, Hamilton Police Service (HPS), McMaster University and the office of Ontario's Fire Marshal all refused to do interviews for the story and wouldn't provide further details about the man. The Office of the Chief Coroner didn't respond to requests for interview or comment.

"The same individual was believed to have broken into the home a few different times," reads an emailed statement from McMaster University.

"The individual was not connected to the university and managed to gain access to the empty house, despite daily patrols from our security services and ongoing measures like fencing and fence repairs to keep people out."

CBC Hamilton contacted numerous mental health, shelter and housing service providers asking about the man, but none offered any details.

The first fire

In addition to revealing little about the man himself, McMaster security documents also do not reveal how much support he may have received, despite evidence that he continued to enter buildings in the area and that his actions inside resulted in fires. 

The first fire took place on Sept. 10 at a McMaster-owned home on Forsyth Avenue South — just steps away from the other house where the man would eventually die.

First responders found the man and one other person in the house on Forsyth without any injuries, according to the report.

The documents and images from the scene show the fire started from a stack of newspapers and magazines in the corner of a room on the second floor which "began to smolder through the floorboards."

"It was undetermined if the magazines were used as a heat source for cooking or to keep warm," read the documents.

Police ruled it an accidental fire caused by drug use, rather than an arson.

They noted the man was "crying at times" and security "had concerns about his mental health."

The second fire

The second fire took place on Sept. 24 at 47 Forsyth Ave. S. — just four days before his death.

It's unclear if this is the same home as the first fire or if it's the home right beside it.

The reports say security arrived and found police and fire at the scene, dousing the building with water and tearing down parts of the charred home.

The home was empty at the time, but the reports say firefighters spotted the man in his 20s inside the fenced area of the house that burned that day.

Jackie Penman, an HPS spokesperson, told CBC Hamilton officers were called to a fire at 47 Forsyth and said it was "deemed non-suspicious."

The final fire

The final fire took place at 111 Traymore Ave., on Sept. 28.

Fire Chief Dave Cunliffe said at the time there was heavy fire on the second level and a hole in the floor.

Cunliffe said firefighters found the man, removed him using a ladder and had paramedics take him to the hospital where he died.

The McMaster documents say first responders and security believed this was the same man who set the other two fires.

The report notes the man's troubled past and states police apprehended him as recently as Sept. 13.

The Ontario Fire Marshal investigated the fire as well, but declined to share its results with CBC.

'They have no other choice'

Shaw said while the incidents may have happened at McMaster, the situation spans far beyond campus.

She called this case a "perfect storm."

"The whole point is why does this person have to break into those homes and try to keep themselves fed or warm?"

"There's no stable housing, there's no emergency housing and no crisis and mental health interventions," she said, pointing to how services like Hamilton Mental Health Outreach have closed in recent years.

Maureen Wilson, city councillor for the McMaster area and the rest of Ward 1, pointed to how Hamilton became the latest Ontario city to declare a state of emergency related to homelessness, opioid addiction and mental health.

"It's a collision of a housing system that is clearly showing it's not working, married with … Hamilton has an above-provincial average of opioid use. We have extreme pockets of poverty … also an income crisis," she told CBC Hamilton.

Statistics from the city's website shows there aren't enough shelter beds and rooms to accommodate the number of unhoused people in Hamilton.

While there's a group of local health-care professionals tracking the number of deaths among unhoused people, it seems there is no one tracking how many fires are linked to homelessness.

Gessie Stearns, a member of the team tracking the deaths, said multiple people have died from fires, and there's been a "concerning" rise in "violent and unusual" deaths among that population. 

The group tracks the number of deaths by collecting information from community sources, but the data around fires may be incomplete. 

"We're troubled by those instances and have a lot of questions about what is being done about it," she said.

Stearns said without better data and transparency, it's harder for people to understand the gravity of the problem and harder to see the people who are hit hardest.

Hamilton fire, police, St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, Hamilton Health Sciences and the Fire Marshal's office all said they don't track how many fires are linked to homelessness.

Shahriar Shahrokhi, a burn surgeon at Hamilton General Hospital, said despite this, tracking is possible.

"We can figure out who has been injured and whether it came from a fixed address or not," he said.

Shahrokhi said, from his observation it appears fires involving people experiencing homelessness have been on the rise, noting how the homeless population has grown in recent years, nearly doubling in three years.

Hamilton's fire department didn't say if it has seen a rise in fires related to homelessness and said the vast majority of people who die in fires are residents or guests of a home.

Shahrokhi said he has seen a rise in fires in encampments because people couldn't use flammable objects around tents safely.

"We call it unsafe but they have no other choice when your options are being outdoors in -20 C or trying to warm yourself up … so you don't freeze to death," he said.

"That's not much of a choice."